


Blue

by Castalia (castalianspring)



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, Community: Theatrical Muse, Gen, Prompt Fic, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-06-20
Updated: 2005-06-20
Packaged: 2018-02-17 11:21:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2307779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/castalianspring/pseuds/Castalia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt fic for the character of Paul Davis on the LJ community "Theatrical Muse".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blue

Paul had grown up on a small horse farm in Maine, under a sky stretching so far in each direction as an inverted ocean of blue, pockmarked with gently drifting white islands of clouds. He'd been in love with the sky for as long as he could remember, spending many an afternoon or evening lying back in the cool grass to watch the clouds and study the stars until his mother called him for the twentieth time to get inside already and to please stop mucking up his clothes with any more grass stains.

By the time he was eight, Paul had noted more than thirty distinct shades of blue in his sky. His favorites were the bright robin's egg blue that appeared on the nicest spring days, the slate blue-grey which usually heralded a sudden storm, and most of all the deep midnight blue which formed the perfect backdrop for stargazing.

When Paul was twelve he was given a battered copy of _Dutton's Navigation and Piloting_ , most of which he'd only flipped through, but he'd devoured the chapters on celestial navigation, dragging the book outside to compare the seasonal star charts with the night sky above him. He learned first to find North without hesitation, then to recognize the time of year according to the constellations, though the spherical trigonometry involved in the more complex calculations required several more years of math before he gave them a try. He asked for a telescope for Christmas and promptly named his next horse Arcturus.

By the time he exchanged the blue skies of Maine for the dress blues of an Air Force officer, Paul had set aside the boyhood dreams of walking among the stars for more practical pursuits. A sea of paperwork was less poetic yet carried him exactly where he needed to be.

When he saw the Stargate, Paul's first thought was not of the leap forward it represented, nor of the wonders it could bring them. Instead he looked at the shimmering event horizon, found it matched exactly the shade of blue particular to the Maine sky on early summer mornings, and smiled.


End file.
